Although this was long considered a decent option and has grown from strength to strength with every bit of new ancient DNA evidence, isoptope analysis etc, its still incredibly exciting. It certainly provides a 'terminus ante quem' date for R1b in Europe of c. 2500BC. It is also interesting that R1b was this far east very early in the beaker culture in that area.

Do you think this could be interpreted as male lineages who marry out as part of their outward looking and networking social system. Marrying beyond your locality in order to network, use marriage to find alliances and indeed to find someone of the same social status (if you are top of the pile locally) all makes sense to me. ..

Patrilocality has been argued on isotope evidence for Bell Beaker groups, and spouses from far distant Bell Beaker groups would be one means of spreading pottery styles. However the big question that arises from this paper is where the mtDNA haplogroups found at Kromsdorf had come from in the longer chronological perspective i.e. was it local or had it arrived from SE Europe with migrating family groups.

There is not much in the way of modern Y-DNA testing in the area around Kromsdorf. The closest I could find was Kayser et al. (2005) where Leipzig was R1b=43.1% and R1a=27.1%. Leipzig had the highest R1b frequency in eastern Germany.

The closest M269+ FTDNA sample I could to Kromsdorf was kit no. N59117, surname Vogelsberg, U152+L2*

A total of 10 skeletons belonging to eight graves (6 individual graves and 2 double graves) of a cemetery located at Kromsdorf in Germany, were tested. This cemetery is dated between 2600 and 2500 BC. These 10 skeletons belong to six men, three women and one individual whose sex has not been determined. Mitochondrial DNA has been successfully tested on six individuals. The results give six different haplogroups U2, W5, I1, K1, U5 and T1, indicating that these six individuals did not share maternal ancestors. On the other hand, haplogroups W5, I1, K1, U5 and T1 have been detected in ancient DNA tests on Neolithic or Mesolithic skeletons in Europe. Haplogroups K, T and W were detected in the skeletons of LBK culture in central Europe but also in Final Neolithic in Spain. The Haplogroup I was detected in the Final Neolithic in Germany and Spain. The haplogroup U is the group most frequently detected in the skeletons of Mesolithic. Thus we can conclude that the Bell Beaker female lineage are in Europe long before the third millennium BC and are inherited from previous cultures: Mesolithic for U and Neolithic for the others. The Y-DNA has been successfully tested on two individuals. The two results give the same haplogroup R1b. One has been tested specifically R1b-M269. Both are negative for the mutation U106. These results contrast sharply with the analysis of Y-DNA tests previously conducted on Neolithic skeletons: F* and G2a3 in LBK culture in Germany, G2a and E1b in cardial culture in Spain, G2a and I2a in Final Neolithic in southern France and Ötzi in Final Neolithic at the Austrian-Italian border is G2a2.

This first study on Bell Beaker DNA seems to show that this culture is characterized by the arrival of a new male population in sharp contrast with a genetic continuity in the female lineages.

This first study on DNA Bell Beaker seems to show that it is characterized by the arrival of a new male population in sharp contrast with a genetic continuity in the female lineages.

It might seem like that at first glance, but the study looked very closely at mtDNA U5. It found that modern U5 does not descend from the Mesolithic and Neolithic U5 so far discovered in aDNA. Continuity does not appear.

It is highly likely that many European hunter-gatherer lineages died out in both the direct female and direct male lines. However in some places hunter-gatherers survived successfully because farmers were not in competition with them (the far north), or because they adopted farming or pastoralism (as on the riverine fringes of the Pontic-Caspian steppe). The hunter-gatherer lineages from the latter region burst upon the wider European scene in the Copper Age.

MtDNA U2 appears at Kostenki 14 [Markina Gora], Russia in 30,000 BP. It has not appeared in any Mesolithic or Neolithic aDNA from Europe.

U2 today is scattered at low frequencies in populations from South and Western Asia, Europe and North Africa, with its oldest branches (U2a-c) in South Asia. That is a clue that people carrying U2 had spent a long time in the warm south before a group split off to travel north into Europe, where the mutation creating U2e probably occurred. U2e is mainly found in those of European descent. It seems likely that U2 moved north into what is now Russia in the first instance and that U2e was born somewhere in East Europe.

Could the tradition of dowries have been about that far back. It's supposed to be ancient in Ireland. Women from some distance bringing artifacts of value, both practical and prestigious, into their new community could lead to coping. Fashion and keeping up with the Jones's. Could explain why some things appear where there not really expected. I think it would be more visible amongst the Elite.

The idea is that pottery was mainly made by women in Bell Beaker times. Pottery was produced on a domestic scale until the potter's wheel turned it into an industry. So women would carry their knowledge with them into marriage, rather than a lot of heavy pots. But who knows?

JeanM I've often wondered if Sea fishing populations could contain any Mesolithic DNA as it tended to be a family orientated and was not in competition with farmers. I think it's possible it took on a greater role after the flooding of Doggerland. There seem to be evidence of Hunter/gatherers being more @settled than was previously thought.

Could the tradition of dowries have been about that far back. It's supposed to be ancient in Ireland. Women from some distance bringing artifacts of value, both practical and prestigious, into their new community could lead to coping.

I guess the last word there should be copying? Anyway, this comment (and Jean's response) put me in mind of the work of my grad school prof of cultural anthropology, the late Annette B. Weiner. She was working on her well-received book, Women of Value, Men of Renown, when I was one of her students (in Austin, TX). She authored a couple more studies in that vein, and taught at NYU for years. I'm fairly sure that some of her work would be relevant to this problem.

As an aside, I've lately been reviewing the paper I wrote for her seminar, because it was about the multicultural kinship network of a former slave family in Texas -- and it probably deserves to be reexamined in the light of genetic genealogy (which wasn't an option, in 1977).

... Annette B. Weiner.... I'm fairly sure that some of her work would be relevant to this problem.

A good idea. The potter's wheel was invented so far back that we have no written evidence of gender roles in pottery-making before then in Europe. So we might well learn something from pre-potter's wheel societies elsewhere. In Kalabougou (Mali ) the women make pottery, while the men are blacksmiths. The pottery-making is on an industrial scale i.e. for sale as well as domestic use, but they don't use a wheel.

The way I read the supplementary info, they had primers (and tested the two male samples that had responded to the polymerase chain reaction) for thirteen specific, diagnostic SNPs -- of which the last five are in the R family: M207, M17, M343, S21, M269. (The other eight were SRY10831.1, M168, M89, M9, M45, M231, M122, M242.) That may seem a little on the shallow side, for a Deep Clade Test. But, given the resources allocated for it (which I suspect were quite expensive), I think we did about as well as could reasonably be expected.

JeanM I think the 'folk memory' is a bit misleading. I'm talking about a very sophisticated method of retaining 'history' and 'religion'. It would entail a lot more than memorizing tales the way you would from a book. I believe music, dance, symbols even the landscape were used to convey the information. Of course this was the property of the a skilled elite. What we are left with now is compilations made later and put into writing.